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The Murder of God and the reformation of the State
By: omar

When the State fails to deliver an Utopia, or something that can satisfy minimally all under it's control, the same thing happens as when Heaven fails to materialize. The State, just as with God, is murdered. How so? First, it is seen as an added circumstance; as an artificial parasite that takes away from us what should have been ours. Plus, it comes with the sense that we gave it away. That is, we should have been always in control.

Much of this is seen in the movie "V for Vendetta", as well as in the book 1984.
Feuerbach proposed that God was but a projection of all that was admirable in man into an Other. The consequence is that God does not exist and that we are the creators of God. Into this, the german mind adds the speculation that if man is able to reappropiate what he had once projected into a "God", which is now obviously dead, then he will become as God or as Nietzsche would have put it, a Superman.

For Marx, the theory went that if and when a man saw that all he was doing was seeing his own reflection in the sky, will also stop seeing that which he saw as a semblance of himself and realize that as his "true reality". Because of this hope, which cannot be questioned because it is taken from the heart, not the reasoning mind, his critique of religion is aimed at the goal, the end, of disolving the idea of Heaven, The world beyong truth and establish the truth of this world. Heaven, in the form of an Utopia, not in some world beyond but in this life.
Sin is essentially removed from man. That is, in the old view, the world is imperfect because of man's sin. A return to paradise can only occur when man dies and is resurrected by God. Again, it is lies beyond his power to rectify the situation and achieve Heaven on his own. His only capacity is to get kicked out of Paradise. But Free Spirits like Marx and Nietzsche see the situation a bit different. They see the possibility of a new Eden within the grasp of some because the Good is within us. We're not just faulty little things. There exists, true enough, a rabble, a proletariat, a mass of bodies, but there exists also the mystic, the saint, who like a Christ, is a God made man.

But what happens is that instead of taking what is admirable from what passed as God; instead of taking back the Good we saw as impossible for a man, we rather take what is not so Good in God, and which obviously we put there in the sky as well. While trying to become Gods we become Devils. Marx's critique is not a dispassioned display of the facts mounted against a form of Govt. It rather becomes a denunciation and his aim is not to critique but to annihilate. Sadly the wrath of man is not righteous or rational but more than anything irrational.

Socialist-Man takes back onto himself the God. He takes back control. He becomes the State. But he cannot do it alone so Socialist Man becomes "the Party", "the People", the "Mother land". These are euphenism, new names for the same thing: goverment.

A trade is made.

The ruling govt is made to look as compleatly unjust and with no possibility of redemption. It's goal, it's end is unjust, even if it's means are. The new govt, under whatever name, and under whosever administration is seen as faultless, because no matter the means, it's end is just...even if the end is an illusion. It does not matter if the ruling elite keep the mases clothed and feed etc, because in the end, their end, where they remain above, just like new gods, is unjust. Not that it is unjust in itself. It is unjust in the perspective of the mystic, the saint...St Marx.

The gospel goes out. It proposes it's end and explains the means. The means might be unacceptable; dictatorship and violence; but the goal, the end, justifies the means. Before evil on earth was justified by the purpose it served to educate us and by God's promise of Heaven in a distant future. So too now, St Marx and his followers justify whatever hardship must be endured as a temporary jolt, suffered with grinding teeth, patiently waiting for a future state in which all will be justified as the end is reached...if it is ever reached.
This is all taken on faith, for there is a defunct objectivity laying next to the dead God. Once it was said that only "God knew" this or that. Now that that element is gone, all that is left is a sea of opinions, so that no real standard exists by which to critique the ramblings of a mystic. With that also comes another effect. Mind over matter; or will over object. Man is whatever he wills himself to become...even if that which he becomes makes no sense.

In Orwell's 1984, the hero, (the superman?) is a socialist. he disapproves of the conditions he lives in under the ruling of the Party, but still hopes of the same system to work again- he hopes for the "proles" to rise over the Party... or more likely, he sees the proles as a means to achieve his own ends. Any man then becomes a socialist. It is just convenient to be for the People, so that in their shoulders you can conquer those on high. As soon as the end is achieved, your end, the mask falls and society returns to it's natural divisions.
When Winston is discussing joining the Brotherhood and conspire against the goverment, he agrees to all disgusting means to achieve the goal. Like O'Brien and the Inner Party, the ends justifies the means.

Nevermind that O'Brien's description of the motives of the Party to do as they do seems to me pure fiction...or at least not the entire story. It lacks the rationalization that men must use to maintain their moral sanity. For that reason I use Winston as a better example of the human condition that gave rise to Mao, for example.

The acceptance of the means taint the entire enterprise. Pieces of man's nature must be denied and even man is abstracted so that what remains is not a man of flesh and blood still connected in some manner to the animal world but has become as a God and thus a bit mythological. Much can be said once you generalize and create simple circles of subjective speculation around what could've existed as a given. But the given is an obstacle. Because "man" has now been abstracted so that it means a definite event, alienated, oppressed, classified, who needs X but not Y, a system can be developed which shall bring about salvation from the present world.

What this means in relation to 1984 is that it did not need to be just Winston who stood in rebellion, wishing a better condition for himself. It could have developed in the Mynistry of Love, on those who monitored the people, the inner party itself. Sure, the minutes of hate helped; the presentation of clear enemies consolidated the nationalistic fervor which then adopts the Party as itself. But the phenomenon could not have been universal. Sure, many of Hitler's generals felt incapable of asking questions in the face of immoral orders, but other generals disagreed with him. They are those who saw behing the Mask of Oz...just like Winston. Sure, the Youth of China bought into Mao's cultural revolution, but not everyone was a youth and if anything it can be blamed on the lack of effort by the replacement goverment in providing a clear Foe which would unite the People.

The speculations of Free Spirits often led to all sort of libertine behaviour. The speculations of Marx brought further oppression on many people. It promised a revolution and delivered simply a reformation. It was not the end of history, but the death of meta-history. I am no Friend of God, like the Frankfurter, but I believe that the murder of God has led to the murder of man. That once the knife was used to kill God (and the govt prior to the revolution), it was left in our hands and demanded new victims. These victims were dissidents to the new ideas. A vision of man was crafted so that all that fell outside of that idea needed to die.

Man is foolish to forget his circumstances, his own tendencies, and failings. The oppressed worker may ask for: "[i]the co-operative regulation of the total labor, with a fair distribution of the proceeds of labor[/i]." Fairness: something which is missing. But will he be able to see the fairness that a society and not himself lives off the sweat of his brow. Can man reduce himself to a worker-bee. Can he ignore what he wants and needs and be satisfied with the progress of his society? Can he agree to combine his efforts with those of others, which then produce the "total social product"? Will he then feel less exploitated? Or will he feel still exploitated and oppressed, yet not by a German Empire and it's Laws but simply what amounts to the same thing: "The People"?

It was said in Mao's China that "sympathy for the enemy was cruelty to the People". What happens then when you kill God or State? Must we not take their place? Unfortunately, that is not the case. We simply must repeat the previous feat and project into another [i]Idea[/i], like "the People" or the Collective what is good in us, and see our semblance within this abstraction. We may kill God all we want. We shall never kill religion....

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

Eric Voegelin "Science, Politics & Gnosticism"; "Theologia Germanica", Martin Luther's tranl.; George Orwell "1984".

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